Venus in Furs (11 page)

I knocked again. Wanda impatiently pulls the door open.

“Why so late?” she asks.

“I was standing in front of the door, but you didn't hear me knock,” I reply timidly. She closes the door, and clinging to me, she leads me to the red damask ottoman on which she had been resting. The entire arrangement of the room is in red damask—wall-paper, curtains, portieres, hangings of the bed. A magnificent painting of Samson and Delilah forms the ceiling.

Wanda receives me in an intoxicating dishabille. Her white satin dress flows gracefully and picturesquely down her slender body, leaving her arms and breast bare, and carelessly they nestle amid the dark hair of the great fur of sable, lined with green velvet. Her red hair falls down her back as far as the hips, only half held by strings of black pearls.

“Venus in Furs,” I whisper, while she draws me to her breast and threatens to stifle me with her kisses. Then I no longer speak and neither do I think; everything is drowned out in an ocean of unimagined bliss.

“Do you still love me?” she asks, her eye softening in passionate tenderness.

“You ask!” I exclaimed.

“You still remember your oath,” she continued with an alluring smile, “now that everything is prepared, everything in readiness, I ask you once more, is it still your serious wish to become my slave?”

“Am I not ready?” I asked in surprise.

“You have not yet signed the papers.”

“Papers—what papers?”

“Oh, I see, you want to give it up,” she said, “well then, we will let it go.”

“But Wanda,” I said, “you know that nothing gives me greater happiness than to serve you, to be your slave. I would give everything for the sake of feeling myself wholly in your power, even unto death—”

“How beautiful you are,” she whispered, “when you speak so enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love with you than ever and you want me to be dominant, stern, and cruel. I am afraid, it will be impossible for me to be so.”

“I am not afraid,” I replied smiling, “where are the papers?'“

“So that you may know what it means to be absolutely in my power, I have drafted a second agreement in which you declare that you have decided to kill yourself. In that way I can even kill you, if I so desire.”

“Give them to me.”

While I was unfolding the documents and reading them, Wanda got pen and ink. She then sat down beside me with her arm about my neck, and looked over my shoulder at the paper.

The first one read:

AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI

“Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all the rights appertaining thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her
slave
until such time that she herself sets him at liberty again.

“As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor, and he is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes, and to obey every one of her commands; he is always to be submissive to his mistress, and is to consider her every sign of favor as an extraordinary mercy.

“Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also is herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her or merely for the sake of whiling away the time. Should she so desire, she may kill him whenever she wishes; in short, he is her unrestricted property.

“Should Mme. von Dunajew ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or suffered as her slave, and promises
never under any circumstances and in no wise to think of vengeance or retaliation
.

“Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some cruelty toward her slave.”

Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date of the present day.

The second document contained only a few words.

“Having since many years become weary of existence and its illusions, I have of my own free will put an end to my worthless life.”

I was seized with a deep horror when I had finished. There was still time, I could still withdraw, but the madness of passion and the sight of the beautiful woman that lay all relaxed against my shoulder carried me away.

“This one you will have to copy, Severin,” said Wanda, indicating the second document. “It has to be entirely in your own handwriting; this, of course, isn't necessary in the case of the agreement.”

I quickly copied the few lines in which I designated myself a suicide, and handed them to Wanda. She read them, and put them on the table with a smile.

“Now have you the courage to sign it?” she asked with a crafty smile, inclining her head.

I took the pen.

“Let me sign first,” said Wanda, “your hand is trembling, are you afraid of the happiness that is to be yours?”

She took the agreement and pen. While engaging in my internal struggle, I looked upward for a moment. It occurred to me that the painting on the ceiling, like many of those of the Italian and Dutch schools, was utterly unhistorical, but this very fact gave it a strange mood which had an almost uncanny effect on me. Delilah, an opulent woman with flaming red hair, lay extended, half-disrobed, in a dark fur-cloak, upon a red ottoman, and bent smiling over Samson who had been overthrown and bound by the Philistines. Her smile in its mocking coquetry was full of a diabolical cruelty; her eyes, half- closed, met Samson's, and his with a last look of insane passion cling to hers, for already one of his enemies is kneeling on his breast with the red-hot iron to blind him.

“Now—” said Wanda. “Why you are all lost in thought. What is the matter with you, everything will remain just as it was, even after you have signed, don't you know me yet, dear heart?”

I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there in bold letters. I peered once more into her eyes with their potent magic, then I took the pen and quickly signed the agreement.

“You are trembling,” said Wanda calmly, “shall I help you?”

She gently took hold of my hand, and my name appeared at the bottom of the second paper. Wanda looked once more at the two documents, and then locked them in the desk which stood at the head of the ottoman.

“Now then, give me your passport and money.”

I took out my wallet and handed it to her. She inspected it, nodded, and put it with other things while in a sweet drunkenness I kneeled before her leaning my head against her breast.

Suddenly she thrusts me away with her foot, leaps up, and pulls the bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young, slender negresses enter; they are as if carved of ebony, and are dressed from head to foot in red satin; each one has a rope in her hand.

Suddenly I realize my position, and am about to rise. Wanda stands proudly erect, her cold beautiful face with its sombre brows and contemptous eyes is turned toward me. She stands before me as mistress, commanding, gives a sign with her hand, and before I really know what has happened to me the negresses have dragged me to the ground, and have tied me hand and foot. As in the case of one about to be executed my arms are bound behind my back, so that I can scarcely move.

“Give me the whip, Haydee,” commands Wanda, with unearthly calm.

The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling.

“And now take off my heavy furs,” she continues, “they impede me.”

The negress obeyed.

“The jacket there!” Wanda commanded.

Haydee quickly brought her the
kazabaika
, set with ermine, which lay on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful movements.

“Now tie him to the pillar here!”

The negresses lifted me up, and twisting a heavy rope around my body, tied me standing against one of the massive pillars which supported the top of the wide Italian bed.

Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them.

Wanda swiftly approached me. Her white satin dress flowed behind her in a long train, like silver, like moonlight; her hair flared like flames against the white fur of her jacket. Now she stood in front of me with her left hand firmly planted on her hips, in her right hand she held the whip. She uttered an abrupt laugh.

“Now play has come to an end between us,” she said with heartless coldness. “Now we will begin in dead earnest. You fool, I laugh at you and despise you; you who in your insane infatuation have given yourself as a plaything to
me
, the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no longer the man I love, but
my slave
, at my mercy even unto life and death.

“You shall know me!

“First of all you shall have a taste of the whip in all seriousness, without having done anything to deserve it, so that you may understand what to expect, if you are awkward, disobedient, or refractory.”

With a wild grace she rolled back her fur-lined sleeve, and struck me across the back.

I winced, for the whip cut like a knife into my flesh.

“Well, how do you like that?” she exclaimed.

I was silent.

“Just wait, you will yet whine like a dog beneath my whip,” she threatened, and simultaneously began to strike me again.

The blows fell quickly, in rapid succession, with terrific force upon my back, arms, and neck; I had to grit my teeth not to scream aloud. Now she struck me in the face, warm blood ran down, but she laughed, and continued her blows.

“It is only now I understand you,” she exclaimed. “It really is a joy to have some one so completely in one's power, and a man at that, who loves you—you do love me?—No—Oh! I'll tear you to shreds yet, and with each blow my pleasure will grow. Now, twist like a worm, scream, whine! You will find no mercy in me!”

Finally she seemed tired.

She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman, and rang.

The negresses entered.

“Untie him!”

As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a lump of wood. The black women grinned, showing their white teeth.

“Untie the rope around his feet.”

They did it, but I was unable to rise.

“Come over here, Gregor.”

I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem more seductive to me than to-day in spite of all her cruelty and contempt.

“One step further,” Wanda commanded. “Now kneel down, and kiss my foot.”

She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin, and I, the supersensual fool, pressed my lips upon it.

“Now, you won't lay eyes on me for an entire month, Gregor,” she said seriously. “I want to become a stranger to you, so you will more easily adjust yourself to our new relationship. In the meantime you will work in the garden, and await my orders. Now, off with you, slave!”

       * * * * *

A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy work, and a melancholy hunger, hunger for her, who is inflicting all these torments on me.

I am under the gardener's orders; I help him lop the trees and prune the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flower beds, sweep the gravel paths; I share his coarse food and his hard cot; I rise and go to bed with the chickens. Now and then I hear that our mistress is amusing herself, surrounded by admirers. Once I heard her gay laughter even down here in the garden.

I seem awfully stupid to myself. Was it the result of my present life, or was I so before? The month is drawing to a close—the day after to-morrow. What will she do with me now, or has she forgotten me, and left me to trim hedges and bind bouquets till my dying day?

A written order.

“The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal service.

Wanda Dunajew.”

With a beating heart I draw aside the damask curtain on the following morning, and enter the bed-room of my divinity. It is still filled with a pleasant half darkness.

“Is it you, Gregor?” she asks, while I kneel before the fire-place, building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the beloved voice. I cannot see her herself; she is invisible behind the curtains of the four-poster bed.

“Yes, my mistress,” I reply.

“How late is it?”

“Past nine o'clock.”

“Breakfast.”

I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed.

“Here is breakfast, my mistress.”

Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first glance when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair, she seems an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are gone. This face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety.

Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this?

She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with menace, perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur on which she lies over the bared shoulder.

At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway. She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on the toilet-table.

“You are awkward, slave,” she says furrowing her brow.

I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent limbs in the magnificent furs.

She has rung. I enter.

“Take this letter to Prince Corsini.”

I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I take his answer to her.

“What is the matter with you?” she asks with lurking spitefulness. “You are very pale.”

“Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast.”

At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve both her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both. For a brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into his glass, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown.

“How awkward,” Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face.